Electronic displays and signs (e.g. television, liquid crystal, gas plasma, light emitting diode, etc.) have become increasingly popular for use as broadcast advertisement and/or informational signs. The nature of the content displayed on these devices has varied greatly, and has included static images (usually conforming to the generally accepted digital image file standards such as JPEG, TIFF or GIF), full motion video (usually conforming to generally accepted digital video standards such as MPEG), textual based information, and/or audio. Multiple pieces of content are typically sequenced into a loop that may last several minutes. These types of signs have been placed in public areas and commercial establishments to advertise products and services, and to provide news and information to viewers. The content can be broadcast to the electronic displays from a central server.
Many paper (or print) based advertisers are seeing the benefits of replacing paper ads with electronic displays. Newer electronic display devices (e.g. liquid crystal, gas plasma, etc.) can be much thinner than their former counterparts, which usually used Cathode Ray Tubes (i.e. TVs and computer monitors). The thin profile of newer electronic displays brings these devices closer to mimicking a sheet of paper. Whether on a billboard, in a shopping mall or in a rest room, electronic displays will in many situations replace the analog medium of paper.
By moving to an electronic display, some immediate benefits are realized. These benefits include, the ability to change the advertisement without the time requirements and the cost of having to print new content, the ability to place multiple ads on a single display, having them change automatically over time, the ability to move away from a static image, and allowing for animation or full motion video with audio to be shown in the ad. The images (and video) shown on the electronic display can also be removed, added or changed as required via electronic digital networks.
A good example of one industry that is realizing the benefits of moving away from print based advertising material is the out-of-home washroom/vanity advertising industry. To date this industry has typically used paper-based print ads located in strategic locations in restrooms. They use a plastic or steel frame mounted on the wall with a lock to avoid the paper from being removed or replaced with inappropriate content. The frame also houses a rugged transparent material to cover the front of the ad, which prevents the advertisement from being scratched or written on. When the advertising content has to be changed, a person will use a key to open the frame and replace the ad.
Moving to an electronic display based medium to mimic the role that paper traditionally played in advertising presents some technical issues. One is the need to protect the electronic circuitry and the display (normally constructed with glass as a major component) from being damaged in a public location. Another is the need to detect when someone is standing in close proximity to the display so a video or sequence of static ads can be played from beginning to end.
Each sign display requires a local device to control the electronic display. A networked computer, often referred to as the client computer, is typically used as the local device and generally consists of at least a central processing unit, a video display subsystem, an electronic network subsystem and a storage medium. The client computer is connected to the electronic display device via the video subsystem. The client computer is also connected to a network that enables media content to be electronically transferred from a centralized server to the client computer. Once the content has been delivered, and possibly cached on the client computer's storage medium, the content is visually displayed on the electronic display device.
Two methods have typically been used to initiate the transfer of content from the server to the client computer, and the display of the transferred content on the electronic display. The first method is performed by a human operator that decides when the transfer of the content to the client computer should begin. The operator manually instructs the server to transfer specified content to a specific remotely located client computer. The instruction from the operator may further include instructions on when the particular content is to be displayed. The second method utilizes a server computer that runs software to schedule the transfer and/or display of the content based upon time. This method enables some automation of the process of initiating the transfer and display of content.
Both the manual and the scheduled methods of transferring and displaying the content to the client computers have limitations. The manual transfer/display method is labor intensive and prone to human error, especially given the many details involved in a complex, high volume server network. Mistakes in the decision process, and even typographical errors, can result in the improper or failed delivery and/or display of content. Moreover, for larger networks, it is a daunting task to manually initiate the transfer of different content to hundreds or even thousands of separate client computers on a single network, even with computer scripts that help the human operator. Manually managing such a network of displays would be next to impossible if that content was to individually change on a regular basis.
Automating the process of transferring individual content to individual client computers is essential, and has been done using time based scheduling. However, this process entails time consuming human pre-programming of the server's software to transfer content at specific times, and scheduling the display of such content. For example, a scheduling system may instruct content XYZ to be transferred from the server (location A) to a client computer (location B) at a specific time (say 11:00 am) on a specific date, but to be displayed starting at a different time (say 11:15 am). Given each separate content can have its own matrix of client computers and transfer/display times, a tremendous amount of programming still needs to be performed. Another problem is that the human operator is still required to be intimately involved with the details of what location should receive which content and when that should happen. Once again these details introduce a cause for concern and will eventually introduce human error.
Another flaw with automated scheduling is that it does not allow for changes to happen efficiently between the time the content has initially been scheduled to transfer and when the transfer actually occurs. Time based scheduling simply does not take into account certain environmental variables at over 1000 client locations that are constantly changing, where each could effect the ideal selection of what content should be transferred and displayed at each of the remote locations. If these variables were changing on an hourly basis, it would be impossible for the human operator to implement appropriate and timely scheduling changes. Even if an operator could physically manage to implement content changes based upon environmental variable changes, it would tend to be like a switch that simply changes from repeatedly playing one content piece, or a sequence of content pieces, to playing a different content piece or sequence of content pieces, which is not necessarily ideal. Many times it is ideal to change the mix of displayed content at just one or selected signs only, not the entire content or sequence of content on all signs, given a change in a particular environmental variable. Existing content display networks simply fail to provide such a service or function because they are broadcast systems, meaning they broadcast content throughout the entire network without any consideration of local or particular variables associated with each sign.
There is a need for a networked system of display devices that automatically monitors certain environmental variables for each display device, and transfers and displays a desired mix of content in response to the monitored variables via a narrowcast network.